Siblings
Summary: A three-parter story about Zuko, Azula, their thoughts about each other, and their last conversation during the Final Battle
Disclaimer: I own nothing. ...not yet. :snickers evilly:
A/N: I'm back now, after like a million years with the last chapter! Be proud of me! Third person's POV now! Have fun!
Chapter 3: Fight, Redemption
Third Person's POV
5...4...3...2...1! And on that number Zuko suddenly ducked under a bolt of lightning and ran forward, bent over slightly, before ramming his shoulder as hard as he could into his sister's armored chest. She, in turn, was forced to leap backwards into a one handed hand-spring – an impressive feat considering her being weighed down by a considerable amount of metal and thick cloth – as Zuko skidded to a stop, but his foot caught on a small rock stuck halfway into the ground, and he fell.
Face red with embarrassment, as Azula held in laughter, the banished prince forced himself up off the ground. "Let me guess," he spat, trying to regain some of his dignity, "Ty Lee taught you that?"
His female counterpart only crossed her arms over her chest and closed her eyes, smirking knowingly until she heard him grunt in annoyance. With that, she decided that it would be a good time to answer, "She may be disgustingly cheery, but I have to admit that she does have her uses. Mai, too, though she may be a bit too pessimistic in my opinion, instead of optimistic.
"Come to think of it, you, too, Zuzu–"
"Stop calling me that!"
Azula ignored him and continued, "Even you had some worth. Too bad it was gone and wasted on a gang of pathetic losers before it could grow fully. I have to admit, however –though I hate complimenting the enemy, I feel like I must– you have indeed improved in your skills, both physical fighting and firebending. In fact, so much have you improved that I will fight you with everything that I have. Be honored. I don't do this for just anyone."
The sun, so high in the sky that it was almost directly above their heads, beat down harshly on the two siblings, allowing anybody within a reasonable distance (although, of course, there was no one) to see the full extent of their injuries. At the time, both sported various small cuts and bruised, though nothing was too major. The female also had a small tear in her sleeve and pant leg, minor burns showing through, whilst the male's shoulder was gashed open and bleeding. The hardened flesh around his eye had been painfully slashed open as well, mere centimeters beneath the golden orb, most probably from his female counterpart's claw-like nails.
Zuko suddenly leaped to the side, rolled on his uninjured shoulder, then came back up on one knee. A quick glance, which he cast behind himself, revealed to him the black and smoking ground where he had once stood. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a flash of movement. He was quick to rise to a full standing position, and even quicker to parry the attacks thrown at him.
He turned and then ducked. His leg was extended to the side as he pivoted on the ball of his foot, attempting to knock Azula off of her feet. She was quick, though, and she jumped backwards to avoid it. Her legs bent and the firebender allowed herself to sink into a full crouching position. The extra bend gave her the power she needed to jump all the way back to Zuko, arm extended to strike the teen. In return, his uninjured arm shot out in an attempt to block the attack, but as his wrist came into contact with the her hand, he had to flinch as a jolt of raw electricity numbed his entire arm. He was forced to stumble back, his electrocuted arm stiff and his eyes wide as Azula landed a few feet away and smirked.
By now Zuko's newly grown back ponytail was extremely loose in the string that was holding it together. So loose, in fact, that it was about to fall out and there was only about half of it left. The other half was stuck to his sweat–drenched neck. More sweat rolled down his face and back, soaking through his clothes and making them stick to his skin. His breath was coming out in short pants and it became harder and harder to block and parry each attack – never mind attacking back and that it took almost all of his strength to even hold up his numbed arm enough to block the attacks.
The banished prince's eyes were wild and alert as his sister attacked him again and again. There was something different about the fight now than there had been previously. And as he just barely managed to avoid a vicious strike to his heart, he suddenly realized what it was:
For once in her life, she had been telling the truth. She wasn't holding back anymore. She was going all out. She was trying to kill him!
"Why, Azula?" Zuko cried desperately, backing up away from her attacks. "Why are you attacking me so hard? Are you trying to kill me?" he thought he knew, but he had to make sure.
The only response he got were the quiet grunts of Azula's attacks.
"Why? Why?" the fire prince yelled again. He felt his heel go over the edge of the cliff they were fighting on.
This was it. He would go over at this next attack. His eyes wanted to close themselves, but Zuko would not let them. He was determined to see his doom.
But what he did not expect to see was Azula backing up suddenly, even though she was only seconds away from delivering the attack that would end it all. What he really didn't expect was to see her knees buckle with tears starting to roll down her cheeks. She crossed her arms protectively over her chest and squeezed her eyes shut.
"Why? Why? You want to know why?" she murmured hoarsely, almost inaudible.
"Yes," Zuko whispered in reply. He was in too much shock to say much of anything else or even raise his voice. If he remembered correctly, then the last time he had seen her cry was when she was 4? 5? 6? Somewhere around there; he didn't really remember, not that it really mattered at this point, especially when Azula began speaking again.
Her head was bent down towards the ground. "Because," she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut in a failing attempt to block the oncoming tears. It didn't work, and more tears escaped from her eyes anyways and slid downwards along her cheeks, dripping off of her chin and splattering onto the ground, temporarily dying the dirt a darker shade of brown. Her knees finally gave out, and before he knew what he was doing, Zuko had run towards his sister, closing the few feet that separated them, and took her into his arms. He slowly kneeled down, helping her onto her knees as well. The girl's full weight was leaning into him, and her side was pressing into his front and he gently rocked her back and forth as her mouth came close to his ear and she, barely audible, spoke, "Because you took the few things that I'd ever wanted away from me."
Zuko blinked and stopped rocking her. "What are you talking about? Me taking things away from you? I should be the one saying that."
"And why would you say that?" slowly, Azula had been regaining her composure, and she managed to stop crying completely. Still, she made no move to push away from Zuko as she wiped away the last of her forbidden tears. "What did I have that you didn't?"
"I should be asking you that." Her brother replied.
"I asked first."
Silence, and then, for one short but blissful moment, the two siblings shared a small but honest round of quiet laughter. It was almost as if they were young children again, arguing over who did what first and who should do what first. Their heads moved along with their laughter, though their bodies somehow managed to stay somewhat still, until their laughter slowed down and they had to lean over somewhat in order to calm down.
"Well, you had praise, for one thing." Zuko smiled a tiny, tiny bit. He wasn't sure why he was smiling, as he was listing off things that he didn't have whilst his sister did, and that usually didn't make on too happy, but he seemed to be in an okay mood after laughing. Still, there was no mistaking the small upwards tug of the male firebender's lips as he gazed down into his sister's face. "Everyone's praise and attention, especially Father's. I wanted attention, too, but I didn't have it. But I wanted it. I wanted it so badly that it hurt."
However, his sister didn't seem to share his same amusement, as her gaze was serious and strong when she looked back up into his face. "But what good is praise and attention without love?" she retorted. "Maybe I had all the praise, but you had all the love – and maybe not Fathers, oh no – but then again, who did? The love he had for me, even, it wasn't really love. Not like Mother loved you. Not like I wanted to be loved.
"It's all your fault!" suddenly, the fire princess began to shake. "It's all your fault! I would have everything, if it weren't for you! You screwed everything up!" she began to pull away from her brother's comforting hold as anger overtook her. "I never had love, not like I wanted." she was almost out, but Zuko tightened his hold so that she couldn't escape, and her eyes darkened in anger. It was a dirty trick, but then again, she had never claimed to play cleanly as she reached out with one sharp-nailed hand grabbed her brother's injured shoulder roughly, and squeezed. Hard.
Now, instead of trying to keep her close to him, the pony-tailed boy shoved the girl away from him and jerked backwards, his hand flying up to clutch his now severely bleeding wound. His eyes were wide and watering in pain, but he had already made a decision years ago that he would never ever cry again. Besides, right now crying would give Azula immense satisfaction of the worst kind, and he would never ever give her that. So he kept the tears to himself and his eyes on the fire princess.
Her eyes were burning with anger, and Zuko immediately knew that he was wise to have decided to not take his eyes off of her, even though it had been mere seconds since he let her go. For, in her rage, he knew not what she would do, or even think of doing next. That is, not until she tried to tackle him to the ground. Luckily, because he had been watching her, he was able to get out of the way just in time and his sister fell to the ground, just as she yelled out, "But soon, it will be different!" she scrambled up off of the rocky ground and whipped around to face the scarred prince. "Soon I will be rid of you, and Father will love me the way I want to be loved!" she went to tackle him again, and Zuko waited until the last moment before he leaped out of the way. Narrowly missing Azula's strong punch and sharp nails, he ran back towards her as she was regaining her balance and leaped once again, but this time into her. They fell to the ground roughly, and for a moment all they could do was wrestle on the ground until the male finally somehow managed to roll them over so that he was on both hands and knees over his sister, his arms pinning down her shoulders and his legs on either side of her waist so that she couldn't escape. She did struggle, of course, but his full weight pressed upon her was too much for her tired body to shrug off, and though she might have been able to escape somehow, she just couldn't bring herself to try to hurt him once again in order to pull off that escape.
And odd feeling gripped her, right near her heart. She was confused to what it was; it had been so long since she had felt that odd hold, until she realized what it was. It was guilt. The feeling of guilt, that was grabbing her and clutching her tight, holding her by a place close to that vital organ – so close that it hurt. It hurt. It hurt so much that she could actually feel it, physically, holding her tight and refusing to let to, and emotionally, twisting around inside of her stomach in a whirlpool that she knew was there in head, even though she couldn't feel it with her body.
"Azula, why are you so scared?" Zuko asked her, his tone soft and brotherly despite all that had happened between the two.
Azula didn't seem to care, and just scoffed, "Scared? I'm not scared."
Her brother just smiled down at her pityingly, angering her to no end, as he spoke, "Then why are you always so eager to be perfect, to please Father?"
Silence reigned over the two for a few moments, the female firebender even forgetting her anger as she thought. After a moment, she managed to choke out, "I guess I am scared, huh?" Zuko nodded, and she continued, but something in her voice had changed. It was higher, softer; it made her sound more vulnerable. And, more importantly, it made her sound more human. "I don't know. I don't want him to hurt me, I guess. You know how he is. If I can't do it, he – I don't even know what he'll do, and I don't want to find out. But I haven't failed him in a long time, Zuko. So long, it can't be too bad. Right? Right?"
Her voice had become desperate at the second time she asked, after her brother had refused to ask. But she had to know, she had to have his answer. Would her father hurt her, or would he give her one more chance? What did her brother think, would he even answer? The answer to that was no. Zuko didn't answer, because he didn't know, and even if he wanted to answer, his answer would not have been the sort that Azula would have liked. So he remained silent, until he could think of a good change of topic. And he found one.
"What about Ty Lee and Mai?" it wasn't too much of a change, but it drew her attention away from her expectancy of his answer.
"He might hurt them too, if they displease him. But I won't let that happen, okay?" the younger of the two looked the older boy straight in the eye, her face a picture of total seriousness. "I won't let that happen. I know that it doesn't seem like it a lot of the time; and you probably won't believe me, but I really do consider those two my friends, and I really do care for them. I don't know how to keep them from danger all the time without seeming suspicious, but keeping them out of trouble with Father? That much I can assure you I know how to do."
The fire prince was silent for a moment, before responding, "That's good to know." There wasn't much else he could think of to say.
"Zuzu?" Azula asked.
"Don't call me that." It was an automatic response; old habits die hard, after all.
The female just sighed before asking, "Why did you hate me so much when I came back after training with Father?"
She looked so resigned at that point, Zuko noticed. Her golden eyes were defeated and sad, and he wondered if those were tears welling up in her eyes. It could have been a trick, yes, he had taken that into account, but at any rate, he hated seeing his sister like that. He couldn't stand it, not at all, and even though he wasn't sure what good it would do, he rolled off of her. It gave her her freedom back, at least, so maybe she wouldn't look so sad anymore. He was now on his back, and he lazily folded his hand behind his head, giving it cushioning, while contemplating her question and his answer. He squinted his eyes as he gazed up towards the sun, glaring down at him, before he finally just shrugged. "It was you who hated me, wasn't it? I was just hating you back. Remember that stupid kid's code back then? That two wrongs did make a right, no matter what the adults all said."
Azula blinked in confusion, and scooted over closer to her brother so that she would not have to speak so loudly. "But I never hated you." She fell silent for a moment, then smirked a little bit before admitting, "Okay, well, maybe I did. But only after you started hating me."
"But that can't be right, because I started hating you after you hated me." Zuko replied.
Both firebenders just laid there for a moment before turning their heads to look at each other. Then the younger girl spoke, "How about if we just agree that we both started to hate each other at the same time? And I don't know why I started hating you... why did you start hating me? I mean, the way I acted – it wasn't because I hated you. Far from it; I just acted the way I did because Father told me that that was how I should act. But then, when you began acting the way you did towards me, not exactly in a mean way, but not like you liked me either, I guess what was when I started to dislike you."
"I sort of figured that out eventually. That that's why I guess it wasn't so much hatred, as it was annoyance." Zuko admitted, shifting his gaze since the sun was beginning to bother his good eye. He couldn't find a good place to watch that caught his attention for more than a few seconds, so he ended up just sliding his eyes over to his sister who was lying only a few inches away from his own body and looking more peaceful than he had ever seen her. "I was annoyed, I guess, that I wasn't able to help you. When you were first born, you looked so small and cute and helpless. I was only one years old, but I – I wanted to protect you, I just didn't know what from. Then we were getting older, and we learned more and everything was getting so complicated. So complicated that neither of us could really grasp it, but I knew enough that I knew the world could be a really bad place. So I decided to protect you from that. From the world, you see? And for a while, I did.
"Then Father took you away, and I was so sad. I had this feeling that something bad would happen to you, because of the world, the world that was Father. Then you came back, and I was happy. I was so happy, but you were different. And suddenly I'd realized that, after all I'd managed to protect you from, I couldn't protect you from the worst danger of all, the one that was right under our noses all along: Father. And I was mad – so mad at myself for not being able to save you from what Father did to you."
Silence rang out through the large empty space for a long while, until Azula bit her lip and thought. After a while she finally realized, "So all along, we were both just acting? We never really hated each other? We just pretended we did until we really did dislike each other, but we never hated?"
Zuko was quiet for a moment, contemplating this, until he nodded a bit. "I guess so."
More silence, and then Azula broke it once more. But this time, her voice was even softer than before, even higher than before, and even more scared; but still she managed to admit, "I don't want to work for Father anymore." Her brother looked over to her in surprise, but she just continued like she hadn't noticed. "I hate working for him. I hate everything about it. Everything I do is closely monitored from whoever is in charge of our transportation, or even people who follow us around. I can't even treat Ty Lee or Mai like real friends when we're relaxing, because then I'll get into trouble, and they probably will too. And it's lonely, and scary, always thinking that I'll mess up and Father will punish me. I hate being watched. I hate being lonely. I hate being scared. I hate being hurt. I hate all of what comes with working for Father."
Yes, those were most definitely tears welling up in her eyes. Zuko could now see that he was on the road of breaking down all of the princess' carefully formed walls of coldness and ruthlessness, and his scared sister was beginning to emerge once again, after so many years.
The prince closed his eyes and turned his face to the sky once again. "So join up with us, I guess. If you want. It'll be fine."
The light shining on his face suddenly disappeared. He opened his eyes to see the source, and once he did, he smirked as he saw his sister's face hovering over his own, her expression a perfect model of shock and confusion, but then again, Zuko couldn't blame her. After all, he'd been lying and fighting and even almost killing to get to him and the others, and now here he was, just inviting her to join them. But Zuko also knew that, as much as she was cruel and cold and always lied, she was proud. She would never cry, even if it was in order to fool someone. She would be sad, yes, but never cry. Never. Her pride would never allow it.
But any response she might have had was suddenly cut off by a large, concentrated burst of wind slamming into her and knocking her back, back, back, and over the edge of the cliff. In a second the young prince had shot up and appeared at the edge of the cliff. He hadn't even looked to yell at Aang, who was the only person who even had the ability to do that. No; at that moment, his first priority was to get to his sister and help her. His sister, who had been showing humanity for the first time in years.
But when he looked down, he was completely taken aback by what he saw. Azula, only still there because she'd managed to grab a small tree branch on the way down, had seemed to have reverted back to her former self. Any bit of kindness, care, softness, human – it was gone. Gone, and replaced then by empty and hard eyes again.
"So, Zuko, this was what you were trying to do," and her voice – it sent chills up and down the scarred teenager's spine. It had once again gained a hard edge; lower pitched, and once again deadly and cruel. "You wanted to soften me up, make me feel wanted, make me lower my guard. Then, you would kill me."
"No!" Zuko's single eye widened. "That's not it! Please, Azula! I didn't know this would happen! I never wanted this to happen!"
"Enough!" Azula shouted, her eyes burning with anger. "I shouldn't have trusted you! I should have known better..." Then she stopped shouting, and she spoke normally. But the prince could still hear every word. "But not matter. I guess there's only one thing for me to do: you take something important away from me, so it's only fair that I take something important away from you! Soon I will be with Mother, and it will just be me and her! You won't be there, so she'll have to love me! She won't have any other choice! I'll be the only one around for her to love, and knowing her she has to love someone! She will love me, and I will be her favorite!"
There was a maniacal glint in her eye, not unlike the ones Zuko had seen so many time before when fighting her. But this time, he actually cared that it was there. He had to get rid of it, he had to. "Azula, I want you to live. But if what you said is what you really want, I'm not stopping you. Still..." his tone was soft and brotherly, like it had been so many times earlier in their more civilized conversation, and he held out his hand of his good arm to her.
The princess was about to bat his hand away and yell at him again, until she noticed how close he was to falling off the edge of the cliff. "You might fall off if you stay there."
"I know." Zuko replied simply.
"So why...?" the female firebender's face twisted up in her confusion. Her brother seemed so different today, and everything he did seemed to be aimed to confuse her.
The boy's eyes were soft and sad, and he looked like he wanted to cry. "Because you're still my sister, and no matter what happens, or what I want to feel, at least a small part of me will always, always care about you. I didn't, and still don't, ever want this to happen.
And once again, Azula transformed right before his eyes, once again going from a cruel, ruthless fire princess to his frightened, virtually helpless younger sister.
"Zuko... help me," the girl whimpered, reaching out to him with the hand not clutching the branch.
"What happened to Zuzu?" Zuko asked quietly back, stretching out his arm more to grab her hand.
"I thought you hated the name." the princess told him.
"I did, when anyone called me by it except for mom and my little sister." Zuko looked at his little sister meaningfully.
Azula just looked at him for a moment, and then smiled a little bit. She felt sort of strange then, but not of an unpleasant sort. It was a nice sort of weird. She liked it. "Zuzu..."
Their hands met.
And Zuko's eyes widened. Their hands, both of theirs, were slick with sweat. Instead of a firm grip, it was slippery, but Azula had already released her grip on the branch. She bit her lip in fright and called out to him, "Zuzu, I'm slipping!"
"Hold on!" the male called back, "Don't worry! I'm pulling you up now!"
But they kept on slipping apart until they were barely holding on to each other. Suddenly, Azula slipped the rest of the way, and Zuko only had time to bend his fingers in a last moment attempt to catcher her. Unfortunately, his fingers couldn't handle the weight suddenly forced upon them, and he half gasped and half cried out in pain as a cracking noise sounded and his fingers went slack. He no longer had any control over them.
"No!" he shouted, as all contact with his sister had been broken, along with his fingers, and she fell.
He could only lie there then, frozen in terror as his sister fell. But she fell silently, her eyes doing all of the screaming, but that only made it so much worse. Then she reached the halfway point down the cliff, and it was all the young boy could handle. Then scrambled up off the ground, turned, and ran, only to run straight into the female waterbender.
Katara gasped and stumbled backwards at the sudden, slight impact before sinking to her knees. Zuko, too tired to do anything else, just let himself follow her. His head landed on her lap, his good arm with the broken fingers tucked underneath him, his hand with the bad shoulder clutching at her shirt/skirt as she clenched his teeth and turned his head into her lap, broken sobs jerking themselves out of his throat. He didn't care how awkward it might have been for her, he didn't care how wrong it may have looked, and he didn't care about how much his body ached right now.
All he cared about was his sister, and what might have happened to her. Why had it been her? Why? Sure, for the most part of his life she'd been cold, calculating, and cruel, but, she... she'd cried. She'd cried, and spoken nicely, and she'd been human. He'd just gotten through to her, and then this happened? It wasn't fair. It just wasn't fair!
He didn't notice Katara stroking his hair, trying to calm him down. He didn't notice Aang, apologizing furiously and almost crying with him, trying to summon enough energy to fly down and rescue Azula. He didn't notice Sokka for once taking pity on him, and not trying to beat him up for his current position; opting instead for trying to devise a plan with and exhausted Appa and weak Momo to get the 15 year old firebender. He didn't notice Toph trying to comfort a devastated Iroh, who was thinking along the same lines as his nephew. He didn't notice Mai trying to calm down a devastated Ty Lee through her own distress. He didn't notice anything; he didn't want to.
He wanted to know what happened to his sister, he really did. Did she survive somehow? But at thee same time, he didn't want to know. He might not be able to handle it.
No, it was better for him to not know. It would be better that way. It would be like a secret. After all, aside from lying, Azula always liked to keep secrets too, just to piss him off. In the end, what difference would one more make?
A/N: Alright, so that's it. It's over, done with, no more updates. I'm not gonna say much, just a few things: the past two chapters, I've read over them; the actual context and the authors notes, and I've noticed that I talked a helluva lot at the end, and I apologize for that. It must've been boring for you guys, huh? I've tried explaining the chapters, and I've also made excuses to why the chapters might be bad, and I realized that was dumb. I should let you guys take the chapter however way you want to, and there's no excuse, whether it's being rushed or I didn't edit it that much; if I'm a crap writer, I'm a crap writer, and that's all there is to it. Therefore, I'm not going to provide any explanation for this chapter. You can take it however you want to take it, and if it's badly written or a lot of it is dumb, then that's it. I'm not going to try to make excuses.
(No, I'm not depressed or emo or anything, I'm just through making excuses and junk. :P)
But anyways, as much as I'm not making excuses if it sucked, I still want feed back, okay? Was it a decent story, or was it just plain dumb? Was just one of the chapters dumb? Which one and why? Any grammar mistakes that I missed? Ya know, tell me stuff like that, okay?
Yeah, I talk way too much. Sorry.